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Person of the Week: Power Whorehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/person-of-the-week-power-whore-2/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/person-of-the-week-power-whore-2/#commentsThu, 18 Jun 2015 16:00:52 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184233The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.

Li followed in her father’s footsteps to study power generation, serving until 2015 as CEO of China Power International Development Ltd., a Hong Kong-listed arm of China’s state-owned power monopoly and subsidiary of the China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). She was transferred to vice presidency of the China Datang Corporation in June 2015.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/person-of-the-week-power-whore-2/feed/0Man of the Week: Master Kanghttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/man-of-the-week-master-kang/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/06/man-of-the-week-master-kang/#commentsThu, 11 Jun 2015 15:56:18 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=184227The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.

“Master Kang” is simultaneously a historical, political, and pop cultural reference. It is the brand name used by packaged food company Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corporation, the largest instant noodle producer operating in mainland China. Tingyi markets their products under the English name Master Kong. “Master Kang” is occasionally blocked from Weibo search results, prompting netizens to refer to Zhou Yongkang simply as “instant noodles” (方便面 fāngbiànmiàn).

Master Kang also alludes to Kang Sheng (康生), one of Zhou’s predecessors as security chief. A first generation official and close ally to Mao Zedong, Kang was posthumously disgraced and expelled from the Party for his role in the Cultural Revolution and his early criticism of Deng Xiaoping.

Example:

Jiupianweibo (@九片围脖): To see Master Kang stand there, his hair snow-white, making his final statement with natural poise, as if he were speaking in the Great Hall of the People—it makes me shudder. (June 11, 2015)

U.S. government investigators are seeking information about Wang Qishan, the powerful official leading China’s anticorruption campaign, in connection with their probe of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s hiring of relatives and associates of Chinese government officials.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a subpoena in late April to the bank requesting all of its communications related to 35 mostly high-ranking Chinese government officials. Mr. Wang’s name was first on the list in the subpoena, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors at the U.S. Justice Department have also requested information about Mr. Wang, according to people familiar with the matter.

[…] The list of Chinese government officials on the subpoena represents a broad spectrum of the country’s powerful government and corporate officials. Other officials on the list include Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun, People’s Bank of China Vice GovernorPan Gongsheng, the chairman of state-owned grain trader Cofco Corp., “Frank” Ning Gaoning, and a senior executive at state-owned shipping giant Cosco Group, Sun Jiakang.The list also names officials of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which manages China’s state-owned companies, and regulators for the insurance, banking and securities industries. [Source]

A. It hinges on a triangle of factors. The first is politics. The second is vested economic interests. The third is corruption. Mr. Xi was very clever to use corruption as the main way to attack his enemies, because almost everyone is corrupt, so everyone is vulnerable. You can’t arrest a billion people. But if you are vulnerable on all three points, then you and your family may fall.

Corruption and politics have always gone hand in hand in China, but vested economic interests are the new, key element here. Mr. Xi is determined to break these to reform China’s economy and create new growth.

[…] Zhou Yongkang is different. He is corrupt. His fall is a huge opportunity to smash vested interests in oil. [Mr. Zhou had a long career as an oil official.] But the real reason is politics. Xi Jinping is intent on economic reform, and that made him dangerous to the powerful vested interests that run China, such as Mr. Zhou. They wanted to get rid of him and plotted to do so. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/u-s-seeks-details-china-official-amid-bank-hiring-probe/feed/0People of the Week: Red Second Generationhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/people-of-the-week-red-second-generation/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/people-of-the-week-red-second-generation/#commentsThu, 28 May 2015 17:37:34 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=183833The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.

Children of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, empowered politically and economically by their parents. Also known in English as “second generation reds.”

The sons and daughters of the Party came of age during the Cultural Revolution. They were raised on Maoist ideology, and many were red guards. Today, however, many of them are not only politically powerful, but also among the greatest financial beneficiaries of the post-Mao market economy. In contrast to the classless society their family purported to be establishing, the red second generation is seen to have benefitted unfairly from their pedigree. Notable members of the red second generation include former prime minister Li Peng‘s daughter Li Xiaolin and President Xi Jinping.

Example:

Shuangshuangyan(@双双燕): Muddling through inside the system is called skill. Muddling through outside the system is called true skill. Muddling through both inside and outside the system is called Chinese skill. Doing well both inside and outside the system without any need to muddle is called the red second generation. (May 3, 2015)

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/people-of-the-week-red-second-generation/feed/0This Week on the Chinternet (May 14, 2015)http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/the-week-in-review-hot-on-the-chinternet/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/the-week-in-review-hot-on-the-chinternet/#commentsFri, 15 May 2015 20:45:32 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=183599As part of our Hot on the Chinternet series, here are some of the headlines Chinese netizens are following this week:

In a new feature called Hot on the Chinternet, we regularly tweet out translated headlines of posts on CDT Chinese that are getting the most attention in Chinese cyberspace, but which we are not translating in full. We hope this will aid our readers in getting a fuller sense of which stories Chinese netizens are following most closely. Those who read Chinese can click through to read the full post.

We are posting the tweets through our @CDT account with the hashtag #中文, and streaming them on the right sidebar of our front page. We will also round-up the week’s headlines in a post each Friday afternoon.

It is common for confessions that officials make during investigation to be used as evidence in court. One topic of speculation concerns whether Zhou has retracted any confessions he might have made during this period.

“Conventionally, cases involving senior officials usually go according to plan, as almost all have confessed to the charges prior to trial,” said a lawyer with experience in such cases. “Taking back confessions in court wouldn’t help much.”

If Zhou felt the court was likely to hand him the death sentence, he might have decided to retract his statements so as to implicate other officials who might otherwise have gone free, said Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan .

“He may see it as: ‘If I am going to die, you won’t live a good life either’,” he said. [Source]

The SCMP article also confirms that Zhou’s two sons, Zhou Bin and Zhou Han, have also been detained as part of the investigation.

[…] Zhou’s prosecution is coming at an important moment for the anticorruption campaign. A number of signs suggest that Xi’s strategy is beginning to show its age. Specifically, it appears Xi and his supporters are having an increasingly difficult time selling the idea that Beijing’s current approach is successfully rooting out the corruption that too often plagues Chinese politics.

First, there’s the fall-off in high-profile news coverage of cadres caught being bad. China’s state-controlled media still runs stories of officials who are being investigated for possible criminal conduct, as with allegations of bribery in the Chongqing city works department and claims of graft committed by a deputy director at the main television network in Anhui province. But the focus in recent weeks has been on the identification and extradition of allegedly corrupt Chinese officials who have fled overseas. By broadcasting about those who are hiding abroad, Beijing is trying to pivot away from the persistence of graft at home. Indeed, the more cadres that are caught in-country, the more intractable the problem of corruption has to appear.

[…] Xi’s supporters have also been forced on the defensive by the argument that the anticorruption campaign is having a deleterious effect on an already slowing national economy. A recent essay that appeared in the Communist party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily and various affiliated outlets argued that this “misconception needed clarification,” and went on to insist that “the anticorruption effort isn’t an obstacle but a way to smooth the path of economic development by removing inefficiencies and thereby provide positive energy,” especially in the realm of public opinion.

Even anticorruption czar Wang Qishan has had to come out in the past few days to defend the effort to go after “tigers and flies,” urging more grassroots efforts to identify corrupt officials and asking for patience from the public and fellow party members because, he insisted, “changing the political ethos is not achieved overnight.”

If Xi and his allies were in complete control of the anticorruption narrative, there’d be little need to have to counter criticism of Beijing’s current strategy. […] [Source]

Gu Yongzhong, 59, has had discussions with the justice ministry about representing Zhou, and his appointment may be announced in the coming weeks, according to three people who asked not to be identified as the talks are confidential. Prosecutors announced April 3 that Zhou will be charged with taking bribes, abuse of power and leaking state secrets.

Appointing a lawyer for Zhou would be a further sign that officials are working to potentially bring his case to court within a few months. The choice of Gu — officials typically pick the defense lawyers in high-profile cases — would also suggest an effort at least on the surface to provide Zhou with a lawyer capable of mounting a robust defense during the trial, as officials seek to show a greater commitment to the rule of law.

Even so the party, which dictates the outcome of sensitive cases, has left little doubt that Zhou will be found guilty. He was arrested and expelled from the party in December, with leaders saying he “blatantly traded power for money and sex” and his stain “must be washed clean.”

Gu declined to comment when reached by phone. The Ministry of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a faxed request for comment about the case. [Source]

More than 10,000 civil servants are looking to quit their jobs, according to a report by the local employment website Zhaopin, which found new sign-ups from government employees have spiked since the Lunar New Year in late February.

Those numbers, which rose 30% from a year ago, are startling for a profession once regarded by the Chinese as a highly sought-after lifelong sinecure.

[…] What gives? The Zhaopin report gave a vague explanation for the decline, pointing to “affected ability to fulfil one’s potential in the civil service.” Stagnating pay is also a problem, the report said.

President Xi Jinping’s aggressive effort to curb graft has inspired a wave of political jokes, most of which are generally supportive of the campaign and mock the unscrupulous officials targeted by investigators. Some hint at the shortfalls in the system that have allowed graft to thrive. Others paint the crackdown as a farce.

But the growing comedic collection suggests that the Chinese have realized that the crackdown is no passing fad, and that they might as well have some fun with it.

[…] Some jokes refer to the bleakest aspects of the corruption crackdown, such as the deaths of suspects under investigation. […] [Source]

Click through for the Times’ translated collection of corruption related jokes.

Another Zhou associate, former Sichuan deputy governor Guo Yongxiang , will be tried in the Yichang Intermediate People’s Court for allegedly taking bribes and not being able account for assets.

In 2000, a year after Zhou became Sichuan’s party chief, Guo was made deputy secretary general of the provincial party committee.

Xinhua earlier described Wang and Guo as members of the “oil faction” and the “secretary faction”, identifying factions within the party for the first time since President Xi Jinping took power. [Source]

The Ministry of Public Security launched “Operation Fox Hunt” last year to track down fleeing officials and since then more than 500 fugitives with over 3 billion yuan (HK$3.8 billion) in assets offshore have been returned to China, according to the authorities.

In an article posted on its website on Tuesday, the party’s internal graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said the international operation was led by the Fugitive Repatriation and Asset Recovery Office, comprising officials from the CCDI, the judiciary and prosecutors, the ministries of foreign affairs, public security, state security and justice, and the People’s Bank of China.

One of the operation’s biggest problems is tracking down fugitives in the United States, Australia and Canada, which are attractive destinations for fleeing officials because they do not have extradition treaties with China.

The article said that in some cases China would send agents to persuade fugitives to end their exile, but in others it would provide evidence of criminal activity to host countries to repatriate them for illegal immigration directly or via a third country. The office also gave evidence so that host countries could prosecute the fugitives under local laws, the article said. [Source]

When Xi Jinping and company came to power in late 2012, Wang joined the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. He also moved from vice premier to the head of the CCDI, where he was tasked with serving as the point man in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. Wang’s clean reputation and personal “firefighting” abilities are seen as crucial for the success of the anti-corruption drive. Now China is banking on his personal diplomatic skills and relationships in Washington to extend the campaign to the U.S.

[…] China is particularly concerned about getting more help from Washington. Last August, a Chinese official said that the U.S. is the “top destination for Chinese fugitives,” with an estimated 150 corrupt officials now living in America. Despite this, China has had little success getting to these suspects – China Daily reports that only two “economic fugitives” have been successfully prosecuted and repatriated to China from the U.S. in the past 10 years.

China wants to change that, and has pushed for meetings specifically to discuss the problem of repatriating corrupt officials (and having their assets returned to China). Reuters reported back in February that such a meeting is set to take place in August, which would give the two sides a chance to reach a breakthrough before Xi’s September visit to the U.S. It’s unclear if Wang’s visit will be associated with those talks or will be part of a separate set of exchanges. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/china-charges-former-senior-energy-executive-graft/feed/0Mining Tycoon Liu Han Executedhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/02/mining-tycoon-liu-han-executed/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/02/mining-tycoon-liu-han-executed/#commentsMon, 09 Feb 2015 06:06:43 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=181174Mining tycoon Liu Han was executed Monday, after being sentenced to death last May on 13 charges including leading illegal gang activities. Liu was an associate of disgraced security chief Zhou Yongkang and was reportedly especially close to his son Zhou Bin, who, like his father, is under investigation for corruption. The South China Morning Post reports:

Sichuan native Liu Han, 48, was found guilty of 13 charges – including murder, organising casinos, running a mafia-style gang and illegally selling firearms – and sentenced to death in late May.

He was executed on Monday morning together with his younger brother Liu Wei and three associates, Tang Xianbing, Zhang Donghua and Tian Xianwei, Xianning city intermediate court in Hubei province said.

[…] Liu met Zhou’s eldest son, Zhou Bin, in 2003 through a senior official from Aba autonomous prefecture in Sichuan, according to an earlier report by the South China Morning Post.

Sources said the elder Zhou had asked Liu to look after his son. [Source]

At the time Liu was detained, his accumulated assets totaled $6.4 billion, including hundreds of cars such as Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Ferraris, 20 guns, 677 bullets, 2,163 shotgun cartridges, and more than 100 knives, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. Liu wore a diamond-encrusted Franck Muller watch and often ordered bottles of French wine that cost more than $12,000.

At his trial, his ex-wife, Yang Xue, relayed this story of how Liu dealt with government officials:

Liu Han would take me to dine with them, and offer them gifts such as gold or jade items worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan … Sometimes he would deliberately lose when gambling, just to bribe them.

An article released through People’s Daily’s WeChat account last night said Zhou’s deeds made him “no different from a ‘traitor'”, a reference that prompted speculation that the former member of the innermost Politburo Standing Committee could face the death penalty.

[…] The article also referred to more recent “traitors”, citing three senior People’s Liberation Army personnel who sold military intelligence to Taiwan. All three were executed.

“The word ‘traitor’ is rarely used in peacetime, but … corrupt elements who betray the party’s purpose, violate discipline and tarnish the party’s image … are no different from ‘traitors’,” the article read.

Political commentator Johnny Lau Yui-siu said the article might underscore the extent of the damage Zhou has done to the party. [Source]

The big winner in all this is the party’s leader since that congress, China’s president, Xi Jinping. It confirms Mr Xi’s status as the strongest Chinese leader at least since Deng. He has shown where power really lies: with him; and no longer with the sort of collective leadership seen under his predecessor, Hu Jintao. In that arrangement, Mr Zhou, a man now depicted as a power-hungry villain, became nearly as influential as Mr Hu himself, in part because of his grip on the security services and legal system.

Putting Mr Zhou on trial may also help boost Mr Xi’s considerable popularity, by appearing to prove the sincerity of his campaign to cleanse China of corruption, both by high-ranking “tigers” as well as the lowly “flies” buzzing around the dung heap of China’s public ethics. It lends credence to Mr Xi’s recent emphasis on the importance of the law, suggesting that no one is above it.

But the party itself is above the law. The ritual of political humiliation follows a rigid protocol: first, the internal party investigation; second, expulsion from the party. Only then—at the party’s behest—are legal charges framed. In the case of Mr Zhou, the Chinese press has tried to present his fall from grace as purely about the party purging itself of corruption, rather than some internal power struggle. “The party and corruption are like water and fire,” sobbed its mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, surprising those who think they are more like dry tinder and matches. [Source]

The court said that Mr. Liu had accepted bribes of nearly $5.8 million over a decade, from 2002 to 2012. The bribes were given to him directly or through his son, Liu Decheng, according to Xinhua.

Mr. Liu was one of the first and most visible targets of the anticorruption campaign begun by President Xi Jinping, who became leader of the Communist Party in November 2012. Mr. Xi has vowed to take down both “tigers” and “flies” — that is, powerful and minor officials. His campaign is allowing him to consolidate power, get rid of his political enemies and bring discipline to the party, whose officials are often derided by ordinary Chinese as corrupt and removed from the realities of society.

[…] Some analysts of Chinese politics say the purge of Mr. Liu could signal preparations by Mr. Xi and other leaders to push forward ambitious economic policies, since the gridlock inside the bureaucracy of the National Development and Reform Commission is believed to be a major obstacle to further liberalizing China’s quasi-command economy.

[…] The public airing of accusations against Mr. Liu began in late 2012. That December, Luo Changping, then a deputy editor at Caijing Magazine, wrote social media posts that accused Mr. Liu of being involved in shadowy business deals and threatening to kill his mistress. Mr. Liu denied the accusations through a spokesman, but his removal from his post the next May vindicated Mr. Luo. [Source]

Liu’s trial has offered a rare glimpse into the amount of power amassed by top officials, especially within the NDRC. The agency sets policy for strategic industries, approves big investments, mergers and acquisitions, and has the authority to influence prices for everything from liquor to gasoline.

[…] At least two other officials at the NDRC have also been swept up in the probe into the agency including Cao Changqing, who recently retired as head of the pricing division at the NDRC, and Zhang Dongsheng, who was the head of the employment and income distribution division at the agency.

The government has also launched a series of probes into the energy sector that has brought down senior officials in the National Energy Administration and state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation. [Source]

The former security chief, Zhou Yongkang, is the highest-ranking party leader to be prosecuted since the Gang of Four, including Mao Zedong’s widow, Jiang Qing, were put on trial 34 years ago in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution.

Xinhua, the official news agency, said in a terse announcement that the decision to expel Mr. Zhou, 72, had been made at a meeting on Friday of the party’s powerful Politburo. It said he also had been placed “under judicial probe,” laying the basis for a prosecution. […] [Source]

Xinhua said members of the standing committee of the politburo, the country’s highest governing body, decided on Friday to revoke Zhou’s party membership and transfer his case and “relevant clues” to China’s judicial authorities “to deal with them in accordance with the law”.

[…] “Upon investigation, Zhou Yongkang seriously violated the party’s political, organisational and confidential discipline,” Xinhua said. “He used his position to give illegal benefits to many people, and took bribes directly and via his family members; abused his position to help his family members, mistresses and friends gain huge profits through business activities at the cost of state assets; leaked party and state secrets; severely breached regulations of corruption by taking a great amount of assets belonging to other people; committed adultery with a number of women, and traded money and power for sexual advantages.”

His actions have “greatly harmed the party’s image,” Xinhua continued, “and have caused great losses to the party and the people”. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/12/zhou-yongkang-arrested-expelled-party/feed/0Investigation of Zhou Yongkang Heats Uphttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/09/investigation-zhou-yongkang-heats/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/09/investigation-zhou-yongkang-heats/#commentsSat, 13 Sep 2014 05:23:37 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=177152Chinese authorities are investigating the 2000 car crash which killed the ex-wife of disgraced security chief Zhou Yongkang, escalating a political struggle at the top echelons of Chinese power, according to a report by Benjamin Kang Lim, Charlie Zhu, and David Lague for Reuters:

That investigators are going to such lengths to discredit Zhou is one sign of the power struggle that has raged at the very top of the Communist Party since the reins were handed to Xi almost two years ago. It isn’t over. Another indication is that Xi is considering a proposal to let the 205-member Central Committee deliberate on whether to press criminal charges against Zhou, 71, rather than handle his case exclusively among top leaders, said one person with ties to the leadership.

This would be an unprecedented departure from the party’s usually more opaque decision making on internal discipline matters. It suggests that Xi believes he needs to ensure the backing of the wider leadership before moving to decisively neutralize Zhou.

Xi and his allies are still uncertain how far they can go in their bid to eliminate the threat from a rival who once controlled China’s pervasive security apparatus and built a sprawling network of patronage with tentacles deep in politics and business, according to sources with ties to the leadership. More broadly, as his anti-corruption campaign begins to threaten powerful vested interests, Xi needs to weigh the danger of a backlash from some of China’s most politically connected families, who want to protect the vast wealth their proximity to power has afforded them. [Source]

I understand that the Chinese authorities are taking the line that this is a purely private matter, in which they have no responsibility. I find this quite astonishing. Let us turn things around and imagine a roughly analogous situation arising in the United Kingdom. The well-known wife of a successful and ambitious member of the British cabinet has befriended a Chinese businessman who is living in London with his English wife and two small children The friendship flourishes to the point where she becomes godmother to the daughter.

When, years later, the friendship sours, she murders the businessman by poisoning. Her husband, the cabinet minister, assisted by the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and a number of his senior deputies, conspires to cover up the murder. In such a case, one can be certain that the Chinese authorities would express public outrage, would hold the British government to account and would demand appropriate compensation for the family’s loss.

The Chinese authorities have, incidentally, told me that I could bring a civil case for compensation before the Chinese courts. This is absurd. As is well known, China does not enjoy the rule of law: the Chinese courts and the whole legal process are controlled by the Communist Party (or more accurately by people like Zhou Yongkang, his family, friends and associates, who are notorious for corruption and the abuse of power) and they are in no sense independent or trustworthy.

I find it difficult to understand China’s inertia and evasiveness in my family’s case. Is it because my grandchildren and I are English? Or is it just a question of callous indifference to our suffering? Or are there other factors, connected perhaps to factional or personal struggles or to Gu Kailai’s relationships with past and present members of the Chinese leadership? [Source]

Chinese authorities have begun criminal investigations into three former high-ranking officials over corruption allegations, state media said on Monday, two of whom were allies of powerful, retired domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang.

[…] Several of Zhou’s political allies have been held in custody and questioned over corruption, including former Vice Minister of Public Security Li Dongsheng and Jiang Jiemin, who was the top regulator of state-owned enterprises for five months until last September.

The official Xinhua news agency said criminal investigations had been opened into Li and Jiang, along with another official, Wang Yongchun, who was a vice president of China’s biggest oil company, China National Petroleum Corporation, the parent of PetroChina. [Source]

Sources said the authorities were worried the disgrace of Zhou, who was in charge of law and order for more than a decade, would shake the public’s confidence in the legal system.

Party leaders have decided to put more emphasis on the rule of law during the plenary session, said the sources, who include senior law enforcement and propaganda officials. The leaders also intend to defend the probe into the former Politburo Standing Committee member, saying the inquiry followed the party’s constitution and was not driven by a political power struggle.

[…] The sources said party leaders had decided to emphasise the rule of law during the plenary session to ease public speculation that investigations into disgraced officials were purely political purges.

“The top leader wants to show that the campaign against corruption is for the benefit of the party and the public, not to pursue his own interest in opposing anyone,” a source said. [Source]

“All major party factions have started making arrangements for the next round of power transition,” said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based historian who previously worked at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and whose father was persecuted in the Cultural Revolution after being a vice minister. “Xi needs to accumulate political capital within the first few years in office so he can be in a strong position in 2017 to push his agenda.”

[…] The party in 2017 will hold its 19th congress, when all of the seven Standing Committee members except Xi and Li are scheduled to retire, having reached the age of 68. Six out of the remaining 18 members in the Politburo, the second most powerful body in the hierarchy, are also due to step down by then. [Source]

Nepotism and corruption are commonplace and meritocracy often absent when selecting cadres, concludes a survey published in the People’s Daily on July 6. More than 3,000 local cadres in 16 provinces responded to the survey questionnaires distributed by the party department responsible for personnel.

The investigation showed that, when multiple candidates vie for a spot, top party leaders use their influence to ensure those they favor win promotion. Buying and selling positions in the party is also commonplace, the survey noted.

“All this corrupt and unfair behavior that the study cited has existed in the selection and appointment of officials for decades,” said Professor Cai Lihui, a political analyst at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University, reported the South China Morning Post on July 7. “It’s the result of a lack of checks and balances in China’s government. No one can limit the power of the officials and the party.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/07/findings-graft-probe-zhou-yongkang-set-revealed/feed/0Official Drops Cryptic Hint About Zhou Yongkanghttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/03/official-drops-cryptic-hint-zhou-yongkang/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/03/official-drops-cryptic-hint-zhou-yongkang/#commentsTue, 04 Mar 2014 06:22:23 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=169756In an apparently unscripted response to a question from a South China Morning Post reporter, Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) spokesman Lü Xinhua gave the first official indication yet that former security chief Zhou Yongkang may face charges. From Keith Zhai at the South China Morning Post:

The hint, the strongest so far that the leadership will soon make the case public, was dropped after the South China Morning Post asked Lv Xinhua, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), whether Zhou was being investigated.

At a press conference ahead of the annual session starting today, Lv sidestepped the question but stressed that “anyone who violates the party’s discipline and the state law will be seriously investigated and punished, no matter who he is or how high ranking he is”.

[…] He added: “Since last year, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision have conducted investigations or announced punishment for 31 top officials, including some at ministerial level.

“Our serious investigation and punishment of party members and cadres, including some senior officials, indicates that what we stated was not empty words. I can only say so much so far. You know what I’m saying.” [Source]

After the press conference, posts and hashtags of ‘you know what I mean’ (or literally, from the Chinese, ‘you understand’) lit up the Chinese messaging app WeChat. On Weibo, a Chinese platform similar to Twitter, popular microbloggers (known as ‘Big Vs’) started posting irreverent messages alluding to comments from the press conference.

Social media users appeared excited that Mr Lu’s honest conclusion to the question — ‘I can only give you this answer, you know what I mean’ — had strayed from pre-scripted comments, a rarity for the Chinese Government. His answer seemed to have a genuinely human element to it. ‘In reality, (the comment) “you know what I mean” narrows the gap between politics and the public’, ran an op-ed in The Beijing Times today.

[…] In all the excitement, even the official Tencent Weibo account of Xinhua, China’s official news agency, posted a message titled ‘continue to fight corruption, you know what I mean!’. The post was subsequently edited so that ‘you know what I mean’ was deleted. [Source]

The official Global Times reported on the response, concluding that, “The speech, along with the recent wave of media reports about people connected to Zhou Yongkang, has led many to wonder whether overseas media reports claiming Zhou Yongkang is being probed are true or not.”

Zhou Yuanqing and his businesswoman wife Zhou Lingying were taken away from their home in Wuxi in the eastern province of Jiangsu on December 1 by “discipline investigators from Beijing”, the Beijing News said.

The husband is a brother of Zhou Yongkang, according to the report, who amassed huge power during his time as China’s security chief and retired as a member of the Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) in late 2012.

The wife was a major investor in a multi-million-dollar Audi dealership and her success “had a lot to do” with Zhou Yongkang’s son Zhou Bin, the newspaper added. [Source]

An article on news portal Sohu.com said yesterday that Zhou Bin’s empire had been built on “the name of the father”.

[…] People.com.cn, a website affiliated with People’s Daily, reran the article. The China Youth Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Youth League, also ran a commentary questioning how the vested interests behind Zhou Bin were formed.

“Zhou Bin used his powerful government resources to obtain land he resold for a hefty profit. He could make corrupt deals because of the advantages he enjoyed, which were secured by powerful politicians intervening in business,” it said.

A journalist who has investigated Zhou Bin but requested anonymity said his newspaper had not received orders to avoid reports about the son. “I guess the authorities want to use the media to crack the Zhou family’s case and build up the right media environment, just as they did before with Bo Xilai,” referring to the fallen former Chongqing party boss. [Source]